On December 7, the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan in Georgia marked the national day at Radisson Blu Iveria Hotel. The reception was held in a cordial and creative atmosphere. Kazakhstan is the only country of Central Asia, which has the embassy in Georgia.
After the national anthems of the two countries, the evening opened with an official speech of Adil Tursunov, Charge D’Affaires, of the Embassy. He referred to Mr. Davit Zalkaliani, First Deputy Foreign Minister, to the

distinguished and ordinary people invited to the reception. “First of all, let me cordially thank you for joining us tonight to celebrate the 21st anniversary of the Republic of Kazakhstan’s Independence.” In a few words, he recounted the history of the Kazakh nation. “As you may know, the path of the Kazakh nation to sovereignty wasn’t easy. After the assassination of the last Kazakh khan in 1861, we were a colony under the rule of the Russian Tsar, then of the Soviet empire. For 150 years we almost lost own national traditions, customs and religion. We couldn’t save our original alphabet and were forced to use the one we never knew before and which belonged to a different religion. We barely survived after so called ‘golodomor’ in 1928-1932 when 2.5 million Kazakhs died from total starvation because of Soviet collectivization. During the same 4 years another 1.5 million Kazakhs had to escape to neighboring countries in order to stay alive. Eventually, with the help of the Almighty we proclaimed the Independence in 1991. Mr. Tursunov added that 21 years ago, some foreign observers doubted the ability of Kazakhstan – the 9th largest country in the world in terms of its size, occupying 3.2 mln. sq. km. – could stand on its own two feet and be a viable country. “But today we are a proud nation of 17 million people who under the leadership of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, has united around a mutual commitment to implement fast and advanced economic reforms, consistently supported by political changes. This formula of my country’s strategic development is known as “Kazakhstan’s Way. Today we can say that this evolutionary approach has justified itself. It enabled us to ensure political stability and harmony in the society comprising of 140 ethnic groups and of 46 religions and confessions.”Afterwards, he touched on the economy. Purportedly, they managed to increase annual GDP by 6 to 7% last 10 years in a raw. Their per capita GDP grew 16 times from $700 to $13.000. “This economic indicator brings my country’s level of development to the level of the Eastern-European countries. We are particularly proud that modern Kazakhstan is a respected and credible partner of the international community,” Adil Tursunov noted. The Charge D’Affaires talked about the bilateral relations. A few months back, on July 23, the 20th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Kazakhstan and Georgia was marked. “It’s a pleasure to say that we have reached this milestone with remarkable achievements. The key to this success in my view is in the fact that Astana and Tbilisi have built mutual dialogue strictly according to the Bilateral Relationship Basics Treaty, signed in 1993. In particular, this document says that the two states “commit to the principles of mutual respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of existing borders, equality, non-interference in internal affairs of each other ... and other universally recognized norms of international law”.These days we are consistently strengthening our ties through annual consultations at the level of deputy Foreign Ministers. It was mentioned that excellent political dialogue between Kazakhstan and Georgia is supported by good economic cooperation. President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s visit to Tbilisi in 2005 provided “a green light” to a wave of Kazakh investments in Georgia’s economy. As a result, a number of major companies from Kazakhstan have launched their operations in Georgia, including «Rompetrol», «BTA bank» and «Halyk bank». “Since last summer our national carrier «Air Astana» company connects Almaty and Tbilisi 4 times a week. As we see, the projects of Kazakh companies in Georgia are consistently advancing. Combined with some other factors, it enabled us to increase bilateral trade by almost 10 times within 2 years: from $28mln. in 2009 to the record $227mln. in 2011.” As a pleasant continuation of the occasion, along with testing Georgian wines and savoring multicolored Kazakh cuisine, Seitzhan Kabakanov from Batumi Sea Port, who is a Kakhaz who has been living here for ten years now and is fluent in Georgian and desperately in love with this country, performed several popular Georgian songs by Giorgi Tsabadze, talking to the audience in Georgian, which was a culmination of the most positive and cordial emotions, emphasizing the fact that our two nations share a strong feeling of friendship.